Senate passes stimulus package...

[LindaG4458]

I fail to see how senior citizens will be negatively impacted.

I have no confidence that this bill will do anything to improve things for the seniors.

I am 60.5 years old. We did everything we were supposed to to have a comfortable retirement. We owned a modest home, saved a lot of money, invested, and had a good nest egg. WE HAVE LOST 1/3 OF OUR ASSETS IN THE PAST THREE MONTHS!!! We have lost more than I had ever thought I would have.

I am a member of the third year of the baby boomers. All my life the rules changed when I got there. Those in charge looked at the prior two groups and decided that things had to be different. They never got better.

The "hidden" health care provisions will definitely negatively impact myself and those my age. All those promises I have been hearing all of my life about Social Security, pensions, benefits --- POOF!! Gone!!

Although I am not surprised I am disappointed and depressed over the whole thing.

 

[nedac]

If something doesn't work, then you try something else. If that doesn't work, you try something else. In this case it's a very expensive trial and error, but to insinuate we shouldn't do something because it might not work when you can offer no alternative is just dangerous.

If this stimulus plan doesn't work, then they'll have to do something else.

Captain, the boat is sinking...should we try bailing out the water with those buckets?

No...I don't think it will do any good. The water is rising too quickly.

Well what should we do instead?

Let me think about that...and I'll get back to you (glub glub glub)

Obama just handed out bubble gum and asked the crew to plug the holes with it, then sent us (working people) the bill for the gum.

 

[NYDisGuy]

Time to start to get your act together. I dont live in the mountians, i live in a nice Boston suburb, however, i have 6 months of food and medicine and water in my basement. When the inevitable collapse comes, i will be ready. All of my legal weapons are cleaned and ammo well stocked. You have been warned about this and still chose to blindly follow the big lie known as obama. Dont bother knocking on my door for help, i will have no pity for you. You wanted change.....welcome to your change!!!!

Is this the same food and water from Y2K and the terrorist attacks?

 

[DebbieB]

In case everyone missed it, our hero is pulling out of Iraq...

And, our economy did flourish during the Iraq war. Historical highs on wall street and very low unemployment. Did everyone forget already? Oh, wait... everyone was too busy looking for something to blame on Bush, thats right.

I thought the war was still going on and I don't recall those historic highs when Bush left office three weeks ago..........

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

I have no confidence that this bill will do anything to improve things for the seniors.

I am 60.5 years old. We did everything we were supposed to to have a comfortable retirement. We owned a modest home, saved a lot of money, invested, and had a good nest egg. WE HAVE LOST 1/3 OF OUR ASSETS IN THE PAST THREE MONTHS!!! We have lost more than I had ever thought I would have.

I am a member of the third year of the baby boomers. All my life the rules changed when I got there. Those in charge looked at the prior two groups and decided that things had to be different. They never got better.

The "hidden" health care provisions will definitely negatively impact myself and those my age. All those promises I have been hearing all of my life about Social Security, pensions, benefits --- POOF!! Gone!!

Although I am not surprised I am disappointed and depressed over the whole thing.

Your generation is fairly safe. It is your children and grandchildren who will have to pay all of this back, or watch America collapse - one or the other...

 

[Timon-n-Pumbaa Fan]

Considering the state of the world's economy, this seems to be the best way to deal with it. Do I wish things were different....of course I do. It's a shame that the whole world has to revolve around money, but it does.

I am in my early 40's. I don't expect to ever retire, honestly, I will probably die before I ever hit the "magic age". It's a shame that so many people seemed to have adopted the idea that they wanted everything in their late 20's that it took our parents well into their late 40's & 50's to build for themselves. It is a recipe for disaster to go at life like that. It's been like this since the late 80's/early 90's and now we all have to pay the check for the wretched excess of many of our youth's.

I am glad that we bought our modestly priced home when we did 5 years ago. I doubt that our property value will plummet much, it's an 35 year old split level brick ranch. It was made when people actually hammered nails and knew what building something square meant. But you know, I bet there are are lots of folks out there with HUGE mortgages that wish that they had started with a smaller home under $200,000 now.

Our country is going to have to grow up, grow smarter, and work a little harder to take care of EVERYONE. I give back to my community in many ways. Heck, I just spent 11 hours of my time working on putting together a donation to a local charity that is costing me roughly 5% of my annual income. That's just ONE way that I give back. My #1 soft spot is kids. My 2nd is Breast Cancer. We all need to look at the big picture of our community, our state, our country, and our world. The focus can't remain on me, me, me anymore, if humans are going to survive peacefully for any great amount of time.

Suck it up people. We have work to do!

 

[Master Mason]

Now there's an idea! Keep 'em coming. Is someone writing this all down, so we can send a letter to the President? Also, which useless spending programs would you like to see cut, specifically? (Not snark...I would really like to know).

Personally I would start with the entire Department of Education. Since we created that 59B dollar a year boondoggle, the quality of American Education has plummeted.

That would only save about half that amount though, because then the states would be getting back the money the feds confiscate currently.

Then I would chop the national endowment for the arts, at a mear $136B estimated cost.

The list could get quite long. None of that stuff is provided for in the Constitution, we let our governement get too big trying to be all things to all people and it has gotte way beyond the scope of what it was supposed to do.

 

[NYDisGuy]

How about cutting out all of the useless spending that governement gives us right now, let the people have their money back so they can pay their bills and buy things.

You think people can be trusted with loads of money? People got us into this in the first place. If it wasn't for them getting mansions with blue collar salaries then banks wouldn't need all this money. If the Government didn't do anything about the banks and let Fannie and Freddie collapse, your house would be worth nothing and crime would have skyrocketed.

 

[NYDisGuy]

Your generation is fairly safe. It is your children and grandchildren who will have to pay all of this back, or watch America collapse - one or the other...

Please explain to me where you get this from.

 

[nedac]

I thought the war was still going on and I don't recall those historic highs when Bush left office three weeks ago..........

The war was going on loooong before 3 weeks ago.

October 9, 2007 - Dow Jones closes at 14,164.53, you forgot? That was not that long ago.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

If something doesn't work, then you try something else. If that doesn't work, you try something else. In this case it's a very expensive trial and error, but to insinuate we shouldn't do something because it might not work when you can offer no alternative is just dangerous.

If this stimulus plan doesn't work, then they'll have to do something else.

Captain, the boat is sinking...should we try bailing out the water with those buckets?

No...I don't think it will do any good. The water is rising too quickly.

Well what should we do instead?

Let me think about that...and I'll get back to you (glub glub glub)

Captain, the boat is sinking...should we try bailing?

No... That will not do any good, the water is coming in faster than we can bail.

Well, what should we do instead.

Never mind - go ahead and bail...

Tell, me - does this sound better?

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, then Obama is insane, right?

It would be much better if our captain said, bailing will not work, so let's try something different - and then proposed something different. There are many viable options that have not been tried. Why must we bail?

 

[corndog]

You think people can be trusted with loads of money? People got us into this in the first place. If it wasn't for them getting mansions with blue collar salaries then banks wouldn't need all this money. If the Government didn't do anything about the banks and let Fannie and Freddie collapse, your house would be worth nothing and crime would have skyrocketed.

 

[Master Mason]

You think people can be trusted with loads of money? People got us into this in the first place. If it wasn't for them getting mansions with blue collar salaries then banks wouldn't need all this money. If the Government didn't do anything about the banks and let Fannie and Freddie collapse, your house would be worth nothing and crime would have skyrocketed.

I don't own a house, I refused to put myself in hock so that all I could do was pray I could pay my mortage every month.

I trust people with their money much more than I trust my governement with it, I see how they continue to waste it daily.

As for the banks, well how stupid were they for loaning money to people that couldn't afford it. That house of cards was bound to fail.

 

[MeghansMommy]

I beleive history shows fiscal stimulus DOES work. It ended the Great Depression.

Nope.

Hoover and then FDR both tried to spend us out of the Great Depression. Lots of economists believe that it made it much worse and lasted longer. Was that better?

If not, how much stimulus was created out of the last round of checks that were distributed last year???

Yep.

If something doesn't work, then you try something else. If that doesn't work, you try something else. In this case it's a very expensive trial and error, but to insinuate we shouldn't do something because it might not work when you can offer no alternative is just dangerous.

If this stimulus plan doesn't work, then they'll have to do something else.

Captain, the boat is sinking...should we try bailing out the water with those buckets?

No...I don't think it will do any good. The water is rising too quickly.

Well what should we do instead?

Let me think about that...and I'll get back to you (glub glub glub)

The problem in this case is that the Captain isn't bailing out the boat, he's adding more water to it and making it sink much quicker.

I have no confidence that this bill will do anything to improve things for the seniors.

I am 60.5 years old. We did everything we were supposed to to have a comfortable retirement. We owned a modest home, saved a lot of money, invested, and had a good nest egg. WE HAVE LOST 1/3 OF OUR ASSETS IN THE PAST THREE MONTHS!!! We have lost more than I had ever thought I would have.

I am a member of the third year of the baby boomers. All my life the rules changed when I got there. Those in charge looked at the prior two groups and decided that things had to be different. They never got better.

The "hidden" health care provisions will definitely negatively impact myself and those my age. All those promises I have been hearing all of my life about Social Security, pensions, benefits --- POOF!! Gone!!

Although I am not surprised I am disappointed and depressed over the whole thing.

I'm so sorry you're going through this.

As for answers? I'm not smart, so take this for what it's worth - can we move all of these government programs, NCLB, arts, education, etc. to the state level? Send the money along with it? If states are competing against each other, would the level in education rise? In my opinion, the federal government has way too much power. I'd rather that money I pay on our taxes (over 1/3 of our income) go to local and state government where I can directly be affected by it. Once it goes to the federal government, I feel my voice isn't represented at all - especially with the two bozos that are my state senators.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

Please explain to me where you get this from.

Unless America collapses altogether, the baby boomer voting block will protect their SS checks. Now, they might have to deal with losses in their 401k and other savings, but they will at least have America. Those who will have to pay back this debt may not have even that if our currency fails in 15 or 20 years...

 

[wvjules]

If something doesn't work, then you try something else. If that doesn't work, you try something else. In this case it's a very expensive trial and error, but to insinuate we shouldn't do something because it might not work when you can offer no alternative is just dangerous.

If this stimulus plan doesn't work, then they'll have to do something else.

Captain, the boat is sinking...should we try bailing out the water with those buckets?

No...I don't think it will do any good. The water is rising too quickly.

Well what should we do instead?

Let me think about that...and I'll get back to you (glub glub glub)

I'm not crazy about a TRILLION dollar trial and error program. We don't have the first trillion dollars; where do you propose we come with additional trillion dollars?

FYI Obama supporters; its really ok to admit your man missed the mark with this "stimulus" package. You can still support the man and not support this pork project at the same time.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

Personally I would start with the entire Department of Education. Since we created that 59B dollar a year boondoggle, the quality of American Education has plummeted.

That would only save about half that amount though, because then the states would be getting back the money the feds confiscate currently.

Then I would chop the national endowment for the arts, at a mear $136B estimated cost.

The list could get quite long. None of that stuff is provided for in the Constitution, we let our governement get too big trying to be all things to all people and it has gotte way beyond the scope of what it was supposed to do.

Agreed - there are almost one trillion dollars spent every year on programs like this that have very tenuous constitutional support...

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

You think people can be trusted with loads of money? People got us into this in the first place. If it wasn't for them getting mansions with blue collar salaries then banks wouldn't need all this money. If the Government didn't do anything about the banks and let Fannie and Freddie collapse, your house would be worth nothing and crime would have skyrocketed.

This is complete bunk. Maybe half of the banks would have collapsed world wide, but the rest would have been able to scoop up these mortgages at prices so low that they could afford to renegotiate with people in trouble.

The fact is, the entire world would have been much better off had we just let the banks fail...

 

[nedac]

You think people can be trusted with loads of money? People got us into this in the first place. If it wasn't for them getting mansions with blue collar salaries then banks wouldn't need all this money. If the Government didn't do anything about the banks and let Fannie and Freddie collapse, your house would be worth nothing and crime would have skyrocketed.

Doubtful...

Not sure if you have ever gone out and gotten a home loan, but you just get one because you want one. You have to be approved by a lender (you know, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). It seems as though our government persuaded these lending institutions to hand out money to any and everyone because people were being "discriminated" against. So, answering the governments "social" cause and no doubt, out of greed as well, loans were made to people who could not afford them. Even stupid Bill Clinton knew that was a bad idea.

Next someone is going to try to convince me that handing out money to domestic automakers who can't manage their money was a good idea too.

 

[SteveInBrooklyn]

In 1936 Franklin Roosevelt was reelected president. The New Deal programs continued. But all the New Deal’s laws and programs could not end the depression. In fact from 1937 to 1938 the depression grew worse. It lasted until the beginning of World War II. The huge amounts of government spending on the war effort finally got the economy going. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/4/98.04.04.x.html

I agree, WWII ended the Depression, but because of massive government spending. In tough times, government spending works when nothing else does.